PROJECT OVERVIEW

EADS Astrium is a world leader in space applications, specialising in the design and manufacture of satellites. Its business activities cover civil and military telecommunications and Earth observation, science and navigation programmes, together with avionics and a wide range of space equipment and associated ground infrastructure.

The company owns some of the best-appointed and most advanced design manufacture and test facilities in the space industry and employs a workforce of over 6,000 highly skilled people across Europe.

The multi-mission Spot series developed by the company is recognised as an industry standard, and is in use for a total of 15 European low Earth orbit observation satellites, including the Helios military surveillance satellites, the ERS radar satellites, and the environmental monitoring satellite Envisat.

On site at EADS Astrium's Stevenage facility the manufacturing process requires the use of numerous clean rooms. Inside the clean rooms the air quality, temperature and humidity are highly regulated in order to protect sensitive satellites from contamination.

The air in the clean rooms is repeatedly filtered to remove dust particles and other impurities that could damage the production process. If for any reason this environment is not maintained then the whole manufacturing process could be jeopardised at a massive cost as the satellites are valued in millions of pounds. The Cylon BEMS is responsible for managing this precise environmental control along with controlling the lighting, ventilation and heating throughout the site.

“Cylon provides the absolute reliability that we need to ensure the precise monitoring and control of our site which is required when you manufacture multi million pound satellites”